May 30, 2008

Democrats can't out-tough the GOP. It's possible that James Webb can do it. But he's sui generis; a Democrat who can win at politics when played under Republican rules. Democrats love those candidates, because they think of presidential elections as an away game, and they're endlessly hunting for the candidate who plays best under those conditions.

What then are the Democratic "rules"? Or what's the Democratic "home game"? Ezra mixes the metaphor. Sports don't have different rules at different stadiums. But he doesn't even go on to try to discern the rules or the conditions at the home stadium. He moves on to Obama-promotion:

His policies -- particularly his domestic policies -- have not been half as innovative as his politics. But his willingness to double down on opposition to the gas tax holiday, to battle back on negotiating with dictators, to respond to attacks by pressing the point, has been genuinely exciting. And though he has been confident and even aggressive in all of this, he has not been "tough."

And he disses Kerry:

He has not pretended to go shooting, or driven on to Jay Leno's show on Harley. He's essentially been making his own rules.

So can you figure out what Ezra wants to say about masculinity as played by Democratic rules in Democratic stadiums? He titles his post "The Politics of Masculinity," and I think his real point may be that Democrats shouldn't try to compensate for what appears to be inadequate masculinity, but try to find where he says that:

To be clear, this isn't a commentary on Webb.

Well, then be clear. What is it a commentary on?

But the argument for his elevation to the national ticket -- which is to say, to become one of the faces of the party -- is about the electoral benefit of a hyper masculine, effortlessly tough, culturally conservative (seeming) candidate who can win back those Reagan Democrats and white males.

I'd love to have a private, confidential conversation with Webb about what he thinks about the way his party perceives him as some sort of walking bucket of extra testosterone.

As I wrote the other day, I don't think the Democratic Party should be orienting itself towards reknitting that particular coalition.

Knitting! Only a Democrat would talk about knitting masculinity.

I think there are other, more plausible, paths to a majority coalition; paths that are more durable because they aren't so candidate-specific, and that could create a political model better for progressivism and for broad participation in electoral politics.

That's the last sentence of his essay! Come on, Ezra! Real men don't use semicolons. And more than that: Say what you have to say. Don't pussyfoot around. I think you mean:

We are the Mommy Party. Let's own it. Let's do it! The home game is knitting and cooking and putting bandaids on booboos. Be forthright about it. That's more masculine than driving a Harley or a tank or carrying a gun and a dead duck and nominating a bucket of testosterone for VP.

IN THE COMMENTS: George quotes a part of the essay that I left out:

"He [Webb] is the daywalker, combining a progressive's positions with a southern militarist's affectations."

A 'daywalker' is a vampire.

What does that sentence mean?

UWS guy said:

I thought the daywalker line was pretty hip. It also made Webb sound even more bad-ass.

Chip Ahoy said:

I find Ezra Klein nearly incomprehensible and in possession of a disordered mind. And yet his readers apparently 'get' him. One said he understood the metaphor of daywalkers, then elaborated incomprehensibly.

Newscaper says:

This is hilarious IMO. It doesn't mean what Klein, Mr. [wannabe] Hip thinks it does. The other comment here was right in that by making a semi-obscure (by mainstream stds) pop culture reference to Blade -- the vampire comics and Snipes films, he was trying to sound cool and edgy.

What a dipshit -- he actually botched the metaphor.

A "daywalker" is a vampire who can survive in sunlight and fully mingle with normal people and pass as one. But he's still a vampire.

Sounds like Klein is saying the Dems in general are the vampires who can't stand exposure in the light of day (see other commenter's correct 'prog' vs 'lib' observation), and admitting the Dems are treacherous, blood-sucking parasites -- yep, sounds about right :)

But, one might interject, "But wait, the daywalker Blade IS the good guy in the stories," to which I reply that Blade is only the good guy because he has turned *against* the evil of the other vampires, opposing their agenda rather than advancing it.

Klein's metaphor so totally bites him in the ass, by inadvertently being approriate in a way that is 180 out of synch with his intentions in using it.

"I think there are other, more plausible, paths to a majority coalition; paths that are more durable because they aren't so candidate-specific, and that could create a political model better for progressivism and for broad participation in electoral politics."

Clearly something you are not and can never aspire to solely based on your mewlings on this blog.

don't bomb other countries to show how tough they are.

We are a warrior nation. We don't bomb to show off, we bomb to destroy our enemies abilities to wage war back at us. Your statement is a treatment in your lack of knowledge in this regard and is a feeble attempt at trying to psychoanalyze something you clearly do no understand.

That's downright juvenile, as is our national discourse.

This is just nonsense. Our national discourse is juvenile? Do you even understand what you are saying? We have serious issues that we as Americans deal with on a serious basis. I haven't seen a single juvenile treatment of any of them. Define what is juvenile in our national discourse so I know what the hell you are saying because you are just coming off as a pansy at the moment.

There is a time and a place for being tough, and likely John Kerry's inability to show that he could be such to our enemies during a time of war was one big reason that he lost the 2004 election.

In response to AL's point, the problem is the effect of the view of our president on our enemies. Are our enemies more or less likely to strike at us and ours when our president appears strong and willing to hit back? Or when he is kinder and gentler.

Bill Clinton could get away with feeling everyone's pain because we had just won the Cold War, and were not seeing the threat of Islamic terrorism on the horizon. But after 9/11, that was no longer an option - at least for awhile.

The question will be this time around whether the American people believe that the threat has receded enough that we can afford the kinder and gentler masculinity that AL seems to believe in.

I read the "essay" yesterday and thought it was too short and too vague to tackle a topic as broad and as ripe for dissection as masculinity in politics or VP's or whatever it was about. The whole thing was awkward and forced, as if he felt compelled to write about Webb only because the internets have been buzzing about him and not because he has any real opinion or analysis of him.

Still, he's given Ann a nice opportunity to show off her cajones and to spin the Democrats as a bunch of pussy moms; everyone knows that moms are lame. Well played, Ann.

In baseball, there are 'ground rules' which are special rules particular to each baseball park or grounds. The unique design of each ballpark requires that rules be defined to handle situations in which the game interacts with play in fair and foul territory.

So, yes, in a sense, there are different rules at different stadiums...

In many cases in politics, masculinity is perceived as leadership or someone having leadership qualities that can be fostered over time. In the politics is perception world, it would be very difficult to be considered masculine and therefore a leader if you are meek and gentle, even if in reality sometimes being gentle can convey a great sense of masculinity.

I think there are other, more plausible, paths to a majority coalition; paths that are more durable ...

If he'd used it correctly, one would be able to replace the semicolon with a period. As it is currently worded, he probably should have used a dash--usually an indication of unclear or lazy writing and thinking.

Maybe Democrats think of presidential elections as an "away" game because the presidency requires dealing with issues they want to "go away" -- specifically trade and national security.

The Democrats are for free trade, but only if its smothered in a blanket of regulations and requirements that assures that it won't actually happen.

The Democrats are for a strong national defense, but only if its strung up in the net of U.N.-style multilateralism that makes assertive national self-interest impossible.

Another thing that the "away game" metaphor reveals is that Democrats are basketball fans, not baseball fans. In basketball when you lose an away game -- like an eminently winnable presidential contest -- you blame it on the refs.

In baseball, where home field advantage is fairly minor, when you lose an away game, you just lose.

At first I thought, "Jim Who?" But thanks to wikip I remembered he was the lifelong Republican and Reagan administration member who ran as a Democrat against "Macaca" George, and won by a razor-thin margin.

Now, how would this guy help the Democratic ticket, exactly? Republican voters love a turncoat? Obama is sure to lock up the macaca vote that way?

And, "ridiculous" is sitting and waiting for a career .060 hitter wave his bat futilely till he's called out. Or having the pitcher who's shutting down the opposition pulled in favor of some pine rider who bats once per day.

And why is the constant reiteration of failed 19th and early 20th century social policies called "progressive"?

Because it attempts to make leftists and liberals sound cool. No one wants to be labeled a leftist/liberal kook, but get called a progressive and you start to puff you chest out like superman, like you matter, like you are one of the cool kids now. Shit, you don't even have to own a hybrid as long as you are called a progressive because the meaning of the word alone means that you are forward thinking (progressive), sensitive (progressive), issues based (progressive), sympathetic to the plight of the poor (progressive), anti-war (progressive), pacifist (progressive). Get called a progressive and you stand up like bulwark for the ideology. Get called a liberal or a leftist and you cower and shirk that label as if you just got 5 gallons of the black plague thrown on you. Being called a progressive is no different than putting lipstick on a pig.

I think there are other, more plausible, paths to a majority coalition; paths that are more durable because they aren't so candidate-specific, and that could create a political model better for progressivism and for broad participation in electoral politics.

Odd that he's saying Webb's virtues are "candidate-specific," but somehow Obama's success in getting crowds of screaming young enthusiasts to march around with giant posters with his face on themisn't. Just stepping back and looking at the big picture, wouldn't you think he's got that entirely backwards? There's no personality cult around Webb -- any Democrat could occupy the same cultural space, if he were willing to get up and forthrightly condemn the Vietnam war protesters, condemn affirmative action, and defend the values, traditions, and culture of the rural and small-town bits of America against the scorn and criticism of wealthy liberal enclaves. Webb has muted some of the seething contempt he's expressed for liberals and progressives in the past, but he remains credible because -- I think -- people understand that as pretty much necessary to get along with the kind of people who now run the Democratic party.

Take away narcissistic self-labeling, trite slogans and the repetitive delusional rant and there would be nothing left of the modern liberal-"progressive". Welcome to the heart of today's Democratic Party, which over the past 40 years has gradually relocated to that nether region shared with a couple of sagging butt cheeks.

Now, how would this guy help the Democratic ticket, exactly? Republican voters love a turncoat? Obama is sure to lock up the macaca vote that way?

There's a lot of voters who, while they identify as Republican or Democrat, aren't, you know, fanatical about it, any more than Webb is. If they like the candidate on the other side better, they'll vote for him. These are the so-called "Reagan Democrats." A lot of these people, who would otherwise vote for McCain, may find that Webb joining Obama on the ticket is a strong signal that it's safe to vote for Obama, that they'll have someone who will look out for and defend their interests in an Obama administration, even if the person at the top views them as little more than an anthropological curiosity, and dismisses their opinions as nothing more than outgrowths of their deprived social and economic situation.

They realise the home crowd needs to be impressed with flair, but what really gets their juices flowing is not some John Rocker idiot strutting up to the mound, but a crafty veteran who can expose holes the crowd know all too well exist in their favourite team.

And when you can demoralise the home crowd not by talent or macho brio, but by being smarter in playing to their weaknesses, that creates the only respect the opposition understand.

That has been the success of the Republican Party in Presidential elections since 1952:

Well Henry, your not much of a baseball fan, I guess – baseball owners have been building teams around their stadiums for ages and grounds crews have been doctoring fields for the home team for even longer.

If only democrats figured out that G.W.Bush is/was a Christian Democrat in the European sense, but no, they tried to sell him as a evil republican who would steal lunch money from needy public school children.

I also think Webb is 100% the best choice as Veep for Obama. They would win in a landslide of Reaganesque proportions.

McCain would be forced to pick gov. Palin (a woman) as his veep choice to counter the testosterone of Webb.

......and everyone knows this country isn't ready for a female head of state, so McCain would lose.

What then are the Democratic "rules"? Or what's the Democratic "home game"? Ezra mixes the metaphor. Sports don't have different rules at different stadiums. But he doesn't even go on tro try to discern the rules or the conditions at the home stadium.

He doesn't need to explain it at a 3rd grade level. It's self-evident, the differences he's talking about.

If we were holding a class for people from Trinidad and Tabago, then, yeah, it might be unclear. But when people say, "I'm going to the store," it's not ambiguous because they fail to define "store."

Anyone who has followed American politics for more than 12 months knows exactly what he's talking about, and with certainty I contend that includes Ann Althouse,.

Please. Name one VP candidate that caused his ticket to win by a landslide. It just doesn't happen.

Were Obama not a flaming left-winger with troublesome associations with anti-white and anti-American elements of society he would win in a landslide just by virtue of the Republican Party being widely hated. If Webb reassures voters that Obama can't be all that bad then that might be enough to put Obama back in landslide territory.

So it isn't so much that people are like "Webb for VP? ZOMG taht is teh awesum". It is more like people will say "well, Webb's a decent guy, Obama must at least be OK".

The Democratic Party is shaping up to be a lot like the New York Mets season. The manager is a black guy who is basically decent and a winner, but he can’t do what he wants to do because the powers that be will stop him. The press is looking for answers but is in a reverse Roberto Clemente firestorm. There are so many Latin players that the culture has changed. They refuse to be accountable because they know that the GM Omar Minaya will back them up. So they have a separate enclave in the clubhouse, on the plane and in the fabric of the team. The press and the fans get nowhere with their questions and complaints. So they turn to the few white guys on the team like David Wright and Billy Wagner who are getting pissed off at having to explain everything while the Latin guys pretend they don’t speak English and skate. So they start losing and the finger pointing starts. The racial element in our society is poised for a sea change. The overwhelming swarm of Spanish speaking and Latino culturally oriented voters will be a tidal wave if any of the amnesty or naturalization plans go forward. There will be new coalitions and combinations. But if they don’t hold the whole team to same standard of accountability, they are going to get the manager fired. That’s how politics is like baseball now. Interesting times indeed.

Is home and away an expression of the different levels of patriotism and alienation between the two parties? The Republicans warm their hands at the home fires: They are slightly corny, fly flags on Memorial Day, think Norman Rockwell illustrated America, and believe that a lost war is more immoral than an unnecessary war. The Democrats are the hipsters at midnight: they are cool and ironic, think George Grosz illustrates America, and believe that losing a war for the right reasons reflects their higher moral consciousness.

I can't take any 25 too seriously unless they have their legs spread, their pumps are facing the ceiling and they are saying harder daddy.

Also, he is too skinny for me. I workout like a pig at the gym in order to look and feel fabulous and get hot muscled hog. I am not going to settle.

It's not that I haven't done 25 year olds I have but I can't actually have a conversation with them although I generally try not to have a conversation with any of my tricks. The little I know the better. The more I know them the less I like them.

If Webb reassures voters that Obama can't be all that bad then that might be enough to put Obama back in landslide territory.

No, character issues can't be resolved by proxy. Obama will need to deal with this himself and sell the undecideds on him.

Dukakis attempted this with Lloyd Bentsen and it didn't work. Even though Bentsen was the most respected VP nominee I can remember and Quayle was a disaster, people voted for the guy at the top of the ticket.

I find Ezra Klein nearly incomprehensible and in possession of a disordered mind. And yet his readers apparently 'get' him. One said he understood the metaphor of daywalkers, then elaborated incomprehensibly.

The degree of misinformation over there in the comments, falsehood taken as axiom, is alarming. One commenter insists the Republicans own all the media! Another attaches a disparaging derisive nonmasculine moniker to recognizable conservative names. Much like a grade school game or an attempt to cram every rotten thing one has heard into a single sentence. I'm sick to the gills with the term "chickenhawk" especially from obvious gay men like Klein where the term suggests an even less appropriate connotation. I get the sense Klein writes to hear his own voice inside his head. What so-called "rules" does Klein suppose Republicans "play" by, when there aren't any rules and there is no game save for the ones floating around inside Klein's own cranium?

Knitting. Ann, you're a gem.

Thanks for untangling that mess over there. Of course, the comments are un-untangleable. It would take a whole planet full of Freuds a geologic age to get at the core of their apparent psychological disruptions.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Bush for $300.00 that was automatically deposited into one of my accounts today -- Simply the single most straight-up Socialist thing I've ever witnessed a president do in my lifetime.

Palady Malady my life is not fictitious. I go to the gym 6 days a week. Today I did back and triceps. 12 different back exercises with 4 sets of 8-12 reps, than onto 4 different tricep exercises with again 4 sets of 10-14 reps. I did pyramid sets.

Than it was 30 minutes on the stairmaster where I dropped 800 calories.

Finally I ended with an abs class that was killer.

And then I posed in my downward facing dog for about 10 minutes-you should of seen it-my posture is fabulous.

Now come over here and make my dindin (no bread please) and give me a big special hug. I will let you squeeze my tits if your a good boy.

"Your life sounds like the most miserable existence I can possibly imagine."

That's the life of myself and every friend I have. And I have a ball or two. I have a blast in life. You should try to be happy. Why so glum?

I am constantly laughing. Going out to dindin with friends, having cocktails, shopping, museums, walking the dogs. It's not all wine and roses. I can get sad at times but I enjoy my life and myself for the most part.

You should try it sometime.

Your karma is shot and your chakras are not aligned. You need to see your third eye and say hi little third eye. I bet your second isn't very wide either.

"What makes that little old antthink he can move a rubber tree plantHe's got high hopes!"

There is quite a bit larger fraction than that. Vets like me, spouses of vets (young and old). The people that Webb wrote about in Born Fighting.

Hope that's true, Sgt.

Still, we're a country founded on commercial interests. Despite the leftist cant, we're really reluctant to go to war, often resulting in a bigger mess than we might've had if we hadn't put it off till the last second.

"People who regardless of their opinion about whether we should have gone into Iraq, still root for victory".

Well said pal - it is sad more don't feel that way.

You can put me in the (apparently minuscule) category of people who didn't vote for Bush (either time, though neither for Gore or Kerry), was really on the fence about Iraq, but have come to: a) think it was brilliant; b) be really, really, really impressed by the work of the armed forces.

Which means, heh, I don't really agree with anything that Bush did apart from the war.

Ain’t it something, and amazing, and something amazing, I dare to say, that there could be so many songs about a gal named Maxine, even though, I daresay, very, very few people IRL have ever met someone by that name? Examples:

What I blame them for the most is their desultory and negative coverage of the war, since day one. To me, that's unforgiveable.

Several of the local lefties (Eli for one) have been passing along media claims that, back when Bush was popular and the American people were enthusiastic about the invasion, reporters felt "pressured" not to contradict the popular sentiment.

Well, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that that's true. What does that tell us about the likely behavior of the media now, when Bush is incredibly unpopular and opposition to the war is running hot? Are we to believe that *now* those reporters are taking a Brave Stand for the Truth? Or are they still passing along half-truths and biased stories... but for the other side of the argument, now?

I'm a real man. I hack code, making frequent use of the semi colon; I knit for realaxation, play hymns occasionally on the highland bagpipe, and can't fathom the fascist desire to put people in unnatural categories.

It's a false dichotomy to assume or imply that being anti-war means you're a big ol' wuss, or vice versa. Case in point: the chickenhawks who make up the current Republican administration. And on the other hand, two-time Congressional Medal Honor winner Gen. Smedley Butler, who wrote "War is a Racket." (I realize I'm reaching far back in history with the example of Butler, but he really is the quintessential anti-war badass.) For a more recent example, whatever you might think of Pat Buchanan's politics, he's generally anti-war / isolationist, but doesn't come across as an unmasculine type.

By the way, I've been wondering, are you females even AWARE that James Webb is the guy who was that cranky Republican Secretary of the Navy 20 years ago, and back then all the chicks HATED him because he really is a good old fashioned chauvinist?

If the Democrats are the "Mommy Party," does that make the Republicans the "Daddy Party"? And who died and made them our parents? The arrogance really is astounding. If the State really is our mommy and our daddy, it's a really abusive and blood-sucking and exploitative kind of legal custody they've assumed over us, where the whims and interests of the parents take precedence over the "best interests of the child." Think Britney Spears' parents. No wonder we've turned out to be such dysfunctional, incompetent and co-dependent freaks.

George quoted Klein and said:""He [Webb] is the daywalker, combining a progressive's positions with a southern militarist's affectations."

A 'daywalker' is a vampire.

What does that sentence mean? "

Me: This is hilarious IMO. It doesn't mean what Klein, Mr. [wannabe] Hip thinks it does. The other comment here was right in that by making a semi-obscure (by mainstream stds) pop culture reference to Blade -- the vampire comics and Snipes films, he was trying to sound cool and edgy.

What a dipshit -- he actually botched the metaphor.

A "daywalker" is a vampire who can survive in sunlight and fully mingle with normal people and pass as one. But he's still a vampire.

Sounds like Klein is saying the Dems in general are the vampires who can't stand exposure in the light of day (see other commenter's correct 'prog' vs 'lib' observation), and admitting the Dems are treacherous, blood-sucking parasites -- yep, sounds about right :)

But, one might interject, "But wait, the daywalker Blade IS the good guy in the stories," to which I reply that Blade is only the good guy because he has turned *against* the evil of the other vampires, opposing their agenda rather than advancing it.

Klein's metaphor so totally bites him in the ass, by inadvertently being approriate in a way that is 180 out of synch with his intentions in using it.

A comma (or supercomma) may technically be acceptable, but it's a poor choice stylistically. I say dash is just the ticket, but even a colon would be better than a semi or a comma. (That would be the punctuation-related colon, not the other one.)

I never understood why Webb and Lieberman remained Democrats. If there is a party that currently represents the position of treason toward your country, and you stay in that party, what does it say about you?

If there is a party that suggests that we should begin negotiation on how many of our people we should hand over to the enemy for slavery and murder, do you stay with that party so you can influence the selection of who to hand over?

Well, crud. I love semicolons. There was actually an English prof at a university I attended who had a class on the proper use of them. I thought it was kind of cool, actually; semi-periods and super-commas, he called them.

Just FYI Daywalkers are half vamps and half human. In most fiction I've read they typically lack immortality, and all of the weaknesses of the vamps, but have most of their strengths, and the hunger for blood.

Just FYI Daywalkers are half vamps and half human. In most fiction I've read they typically lack immortality, and all of the weaknesses of the vamps, but have most of their strengths, and the hunger for blood.